A Daughter of the Land

"I knew it!" she said. "Only I didn't know what. He acted like a

drugged baby all last night and to-day. Since when did you begin

carrying that stuff around with you, and feeding it to tiny

babies?"

"It's a good thing. Dr. James recommended it. He said it was

harmful to let them strain themselves crying, and very hard on

you. You could save yourself a lot," he urged.

"I need saving all right," said Kate, "but I haven't a picture of

myself saving myself by drugging a pair of tiny babies."

He slipped the bottle back in his pocket. Kate stood looking at

him so long and so intently, he flushed and set the flask on a

shelf in the pantry. "It may come in handy some day when some of

us have a cold," he said.

Kate did her best, but she was so weakened by nursing both of the

babies, by loss of sleep, and overwork in the house, that she was

no help whatever to George in getting in the fall crops and

preparing for spring. She had lost none of her ambition, but

there was a limit to her capacity.

In the spring the babies were big and lusty, eating her up, and

crying with hunger, until she was forced to resort to artificial

feeding in part, which did not agree with either of them. As a

saving of time and trouble she decided to nurse one and feed the

other. It was without thought on her part, almost by chance, yet

the chance was that she nursed Adam and fed Polly. Then the

babies began teething, so that she was rushed to find time to

prepare three regular meals a day, and as for the garden and

poultry she had planned, George did what he pleased about them,

which was little, if anything.

He would raise so much to keep from being hungry, he would grow so

many roots, and so much cabbage for winter, he would tend enough

corn for a team and to fatten pork; right there he stopped and

went fishing, while the flask was in evidence on the pantry shelf

only two days. Kate talked crop rotation, new seed,

fertilization, until she was weary; George heartily agreed with

her, but put nothing of it all into practice.

"As soon as the babies are old enough to be taken out," she said,

"things will be better. I just can't do justice to them and my

work, too. Three pairs! My poor mother! And she's alive yet! I

marvel at it."

So they lived, and had enough to eat, and were clothed, but not

one step did they advance toward Kate's ideals of progression,

economy, accumulation. George always had a little money, more

than she could see how he got from the farming. There were a few

calves and pigs to sell occasionally; she thought possibly he saved

his share from them.